A captioned image posted to twitter by @bluejenables pokes fun at a recent luncheon, where participants were encouraged to donate $25,000 to Vision Vancouver in return for some conversation with Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Update (March 20, 2014): The deadline for the #25Klunch meme competition is March 23, 2014 at midnight. For more information on the competition, visit melissafong.ca.

Previous Story (March 18, 2014): There’s a lot of things you could buy for $25,000 but Melissa Fong doesn’t think lunch should be one of those things — especially if you’re a real estate developer and the lunch is with Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

The PhD student runs a blog covering Vancouver issues and is currently hosting a meme competition with the intent to “shame Mayor Gregor Robertson’s partnership with developers like Bob Rennie,” she wrote online.

“Okay, so I’ve public shamed myself a bit. I do it because I think it’s important to laugh at yourself,” Fong wrote on her blog. “Even more important, is to accept that PEOPLE WILL MAKE FUN OF YOU IF YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID. Like if you’re the Mayor of Vancouver and you let the biggest luxury condo marketer/developer allow you to throw a fundraiser at $25,000 a seat.”

Earlier this month, The Province reported Vancouver condo king Bob Rennie had organized a private lunch and “roundtable” discussion with Robertson in attendance. The invite list included fewer than 50 prominent professionals, all of whom Rennie said he would encourage to donate $25,000 each toward Robertson’s Vision Vancouver.

“I wish everyone that will take my call will step up and give the party $25,000,” Rennie told The Province earlier this month. “I am not ashamed to say I am supporting Gregor Robertson. And I am prepared to tell not all developers, but the friends from different walks of life that will take my call, ‘Come and support Vision Vancouver.'”

Rennie’s pricey suggestion was met by disdain from a number of individuals including Fong, who had been following the development of the DTES Local Area Plan (LAP) meetings around the same time Rennie’s lunch was announced. She and others became upset with the implications of real estate developers dining with the city’s Mayor, and the disconnect between the city’s richest folks enjoying a $25,000 lunch, and the city’s poorest people grappling with the DTES LAP.

“I thought it was — within the same week as the Downtown Eastside’s LAP,” Fong told The Province Tuesday. “The city’s always saying, ‘We don’t have enough money’ but here we are having a $25,000 dinner.

“It adds insult to injury.”

The idea for the meme competition came up while Fong was live-tweeting the DTES LAP meetings. Individuals who spoke at the meetings made comments implying money might be able to buy them more face-time with the city’s mayor to discuss DTES issues, prompting Fong and a few others to start using the hashtag #25Klunch.

“The nice thing about the hash tag is that it’s humorous. People can just laugh and talk about it,” Fong said. “You don’t have to be partisan to be able to … look at it critically and say, ‘This is ridiculous by any means.'”

The competition launched Monday and is being hosted on Fong’s blog, but she has yet to decide when it will end. For now, people can create their own memes and submit them online via Twitter. As for the prize, Fong said it will most likely be a $25 lunch with her, joking that maybe an invite could also be sent to Robertson.

Full details of the competition and how you can enter can be found here. Questions about the competition and/or recent developments in the DTES LAP can be directed to Fong on Twitter at @internationalmf.

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